Oracle Blog

Wednesday Feb 29, 2012

Recently I observed an increase of questions on OTN and
Oracle internal that aim for applying CSS on the generated HTML output of an ADF
Faces application. Surely, skinning in ADF is not the same as using CSS in tools
like Dreamweaver, but it is the proper way of applying custom images and colors
to ADF Faces applications. The biggest risk in styling the generated ADF Faces HTML
output with CSS is change in the renderer classes. Oracle constantly works on
improving its ADF Faces components, for example using HTML 5 to replace Flash
and DHTML on some of the ADF Faces components. If you skinned applications on
the generated output, then with each of the changes Oracle applies, your custom
styles will break.

ADF sinning applies style sheet definitions to style
classes at runtime. In contrast to direct output styling, the style classes are
dynamically created and derived from the ADF Faces skin selectors. The
component developer ensures that the style classes are always set to the
correct location in the generated component output, ensuring that changes last
across Oracle JDeveloper versions and component changes. Though I can't save you from learning, I can help
you with pointers to sources you want to be aware of:

An ADF insider recording exists that explains skinning in a
40 minute video. Though this recording doesn't show the new skin editor, you
learn a about how skinning works, how you dynamically detect skins at runtime
and how you debug skins using FireBug in FireFox.

As mentioned, a visual skin editor exists that you can use in
its stand-alone edition for JDeveloper 11g R1 (11.1.1.4, 11.1.1.5) applications
and integrated in JDeveloper 11g R2. An article that explains working with the
skin editor and a recommend workflow is published here

To learn about the stand alone and the integrate skin
editor, refer to the Oracle® Fusion Middleware Skin Editor User's Guide for
Oracle Application Development Framework, which you can access online from

This document is a well written by the ADF Faces component
developers and provides information that you don't find in other documentation. If you worked through all of this, Skinning should no
longer be a problem for you.

Wednesday Jun 08, 2011

One of the new features in Oracle JDeveloper 11.1.2 is the
ADF Faces Skin Editor for building pluggable application look and feels
declaratively. However, the ADF Faces Skin Editor is also available in a
stand-alone version for developers building skins for existing applications
built with previous versions of Oracle JDeveloper 11g and for web designers
that are tasked with building a look and feel but don't need the full Oracle
JDeveloper 11g installed.

The ADF Faces Skin Editor comes in a ZIP file that you
extract on your local machine. The parent folder the software unzips itself
into is called skineditor and
developers most likely feel attempted to change the folder name to include
additional information like the version number (11.1.2.0.0) or the vendor
(Oracle). However, an issue with the skin editor is that it requires the
parent folder name to be skineditor.
It only allows the writing to be in mixed case, but no change to the name
itself.

When changing the parent folder name, for example skineditor_11_1_2_00,
then, when starting the skin editor, the Splash Screen is shown but the editor itself
does not come up, though the process entry for the skineditor64W.exe is visible
in the Windows Task Manager.

Note that the reason for this behavior is that skineditor, which becomes the root folder of the software after unzipping it, is not considered to be the installation folder. The skineditor folder is considered to be part of the software and thus cannot be changed. To create a meaningful name for the folder hosting the skin editor software, unzip the software into an installation folder you create before. This can then have version numbers in it but must not have blanks in the naming.